Irish coffee
(Irish:
Caife Gaelach)
is a cocktail
consisting of hot coffee,
Irish whiskey,
and sugar,
stirred, and topped with thick cream.
The coffee is drunk through the cream. The original recipe explicitly uses
cream that has not been whipped, although whipped cream is often used.
Irish coffee may be considered a variation on the hot toddy.

HISTORY; The original Irish coffee was
invented by Joseph Sheridan, a head chef
at Foynes,
County Limerick.
Foynes' port was the precursor to Shannon International
Airport
in the west of Ireland;
the coffee was conceived after a group of American passengers disembarked
from a Pan Amflying boat
on a miserable winter evening in the 1940s. Sheridan added whiskey
to the coffee to warm the passengers. After the passengers asked if they
were being served Brazilian coffee, Sheridan told them it was Irish
coffee.

Stanton Delaplane,
a travel writer for the San Francisco
Chronicle,
brought Irish coffee to the United States
after drinking it at Shannon Airport,
when he worked with the Buena Vista Cafe in San Francisco
to start serving it on November 10,
1952.
and worked with the bar owners Jack Koeppler and George Freeberg to
recreate the Irish method for floating the cream on top of the coffee,
sampling the drink one night until he nearly passed out. The group also
sought help from the city's then mayor, George Christopher,
who owned a dairy and suggested that cream aged at least 48 hours would be
more apt to float. Delaplane popularized the drink by mentioning it
frequently in his travel column, which was widely read throughout America.
In later years, after the Buena Vista had served, by its count, more than
30 million of the drinks, Delaplane and the owners grew tired of the
drink. A friend commented that the problem with Irish coffee is that it
ruins three good drinks: coffee, cream, and whiskey.

In Spain
a "Café Irlandés" ("Irish Coffee") is sometimes served with a
bottom layer of whiskey, a separate coffee layer, and a layer of cream on
top. Special devices are sold for making Café Irlandés.

Preparation at the Thatch Pub

Black
coffee made with our very own deep spring water is poured into the mug;

A Jigger of Jameson
Irish Whiskey and at least one level teaspoon of demerara sugar is stirred
in until fully dissolved. The sugar is essential for floating liquid cream
on top. Fresh cream from our own dairy herd is carefully poured over the
coffee. The layer of cream will float on the coffee without mixing. The
coffee is drunk through the layer of cream.